Snow is a typical novel by the very prolific Mike Bond. It has bad guys and good guys set against each other in an environment to say the least hostile for all involved. And that environment is definitely snow and lots of it. Zack, a former NFL star and currently renowned sportscaster and his friend Steve a successful wall street broker meet every year in Montana with their guide and friend Curt to have a boy's time out and go hunting for elk. This year each has a money problem - that is a lack of it, and a need for it sooner than later. Introduced is the discovery of a crashed private plane with a cargo of two coffins. The coffins filled with high grade cocaine multi millions of dollars worth even at low end street pricing.
The three individuals each have thoughts about what selling the drugs will do to get them out of their monetary problems. They find that someone survived the crash and walked out of the area certainly to get help in transporting the cocaine to a place where it could begin its normal journey into the hands of the people addicted to it and desperate to get it.
Diego is the name of the individual tasked with taking care of bringing the drug to Maria Christina the lady that is in charge of the cartel's operations in the US. Diego has a crush on her and imagines that if he is successful in handling the tasks given to him by Maria she will someday decide that he is worth her devotion and marry him. These five people are the main players in the novel and Mr Bond does a good job in fleshing them out a process also including those that love them.
The book is not overly complicated and the reactions of all those involved are easy to follow. The ending is a predictable one for those taking part in the story and provides a more than satisfactory ending. Well done and certainly continuing to enhance Mr Bond's reputation as an author of captivating novels making his next works eagerly waited for.

As a very well written story I throughly enjoyed reading this, I found the descriptive writing beautiful and the dialogue believable. However I did not really enjoy the storyline or subject matter but this is, I feel, a purely personal opinion. I found the storyline to be very tense and this may just be a case for me of being the wrong story at the wrong time. I would not hesitate to recommend this to others as it is a well written novel of it’s genre .

This book was a difficult one to rate. While I didn't care for the subject matter (drugs), the author's writing style kept me interested and wanting to know what will happen next. You wanted to know what was going to happen to Zack and Steve and who was going to catch them first. I think the police could have tried a little harder to find them. The end was underwhelming, but they seemed to get what they should have. I would read this author again.

A compelling novel about the power of greed. The protagonists, a successful Manhattan broker and a former NFL star, fall victim to the lure of quick easy money. The story is all downhill from there. This is one of the most depressing books that I have read. However, it is nonstop action and I could not put it down.
The author has strong feelings about the problems with modern society: environmental collapse, materialism and drug addiction. I am inclined to read more of his books, but I don’t know if I can handle the negativity.

Oh no. The suspense would have been ok. The plot sounded good, but this wound up like a movie that gets worse and worse till you feel like it was a D grade and not a B grade. (I like several B grade films.) I couldn't connect, nor like, or feel anything for any of the characters. They lacked in every way. Lack of morals, brains, heart, just completely lacked. I wound up having to re-read because I'd fallen prey to skimming. That was due to my inability to connect to this story. I really tried, but this isn't my cup of anything, including tea.

My copy came from Net Galley. My thoughts and opinions are my own. I agreed to leave an honest review of my own free choice.

The story is a good one and the ending is rather unexpected, however it does tend to drag on a bit in several places. Took a long time to read.

Quick decisions are unsafe decisions. - Sophocles

This was an okay story. I've read many different versions of it over the years and this wasn't my favorite.

The story starts in Montana during the winter. Steve, a New York investment broker, and Zack, an ex-NFL linebacker now sportscaster, are on their annual ten day elk hunt with their favorite Cheyenne hunting guide, Curt. The three men are good friends and enjoy their time "away from it all" every year.

Zack is out hunting and comes across a downed plane. When he brings Steve back later to look at it, they find it's carrying a huge load of cocaine.

And that's when decisions start being made that will affect all three men - disastrously.

The story travels from Montana to Colorado to Nevada with an assortment of letter agencies, law enforcement, plus a drug cartel involved.

This was a basic story with one-dimensional unlikable characters. My favorite part was actually the descriptions of the countryside and cities.

If you want a quick read that you don't have to think much about, this would fit. It's not terribly written, just rather uninspired.

I received this book from Mandevilla Press through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read the book and leave an unbiased review.

I found this book to be reasonably suspenseful, if you can overcome the complete lack of sympathy for any of the characters whatsoever, not to mention the absolute ridiculousness of the plot. If you are prepared to believe, even in a small way, that it's likely that reasonably intelligent and successful men would make so many obviously bad decisions, then by all means read on!

Each of the main characters are out for themselves, without any real redeeming qualities, with the sole exception of the half-Cheyenne guide who they betray and who then tries to hunt them down, along with the drug dealers, police, DEA, and seemingly everyone along the way.

There are enough beach reads available that I would not recommend spending good money for this one, I'm sorry to say. For myself, I received a reviewers copy courtesy of NetGalley, so thankfully I avoided that buyers remorse.

I really enjoyed reading this book. A rollercoaster ride that kept me hooked throughout. My only gripe was the ending. I would have liked an ending that was a little more forgiving.

The story was interesting and I could really visualize the place, the people, the action. My biggest issue was the pacing. At times it seemed to drag with too much spent on descriptions then in the next minute a very big event would take place over just a few sentences. It felt unbalanced. Nonetheless, a quick read with some good action.

This is a fast paced thriller with lots of twists and turns. It shows how even basically good people will do bad things when they are faced with money problems and stumble into a seemingly quick and easy way to end those problems. One unanswered question: was there a mule in DEA giving the cartel information? The use of a sportscaster and former NFL player teamed with a New York investment banker as friends and co-conspirators was interesting in that it brought two different perspectives and styles to the situation. Somewhat predictable, but never dull.

Interesting read. The characters in Snow are not at all likeable, with the exception of Curt, but the action is nonstop from beginning to end. For me, it was almost a comedy. I found myself wondering just what stupid decision Zack and/or Steve would make next.

This book was such a rush! It is not my typical genre, but I enjoyed it anyway—even though I nearly developed a heart condition from the intensity!!! I do believe that a few key points seemed unnaturally hurried, but I know that fast-paced story telling is part of this author's allure. I also think I would have liked a little more evenly distributed detail throughout the book even so. Many trivial parts had huge deposits of detail; sentences listing ten items, or vivid descriptions of the young ladies’ anatomies. (One glaring example is the huge, several page history lesson on how Las Vegas came to be. This was highly irrelevant and very perturbing at an interesting point in the thick of the drama. It added nothing to the story at hand..) Meanwhile, much of the main events’ descriptions were limited. This may just be routine, fast-paced-novel strategy—it certainly moves the plot along. However, I listened to the book, the way I do with all of my books (speech to text), and there were numerous times when I had to go back a page or so to see what I missed, because things suddenly began happening too quickly. There were also some logistics that just did not sit squarely with what might realistically happen or were not explained in a way that felt plausible. I read all of the amazing reviews in the preface before I read the book, and it did live up to those reviews. I was still a little disappointed, though, because it wasn’t up to MY literary expectations—and I know it is not meant to be a classic—but that is my honest opinion. (In fairness, to really give credit where it is due, as an ELA teacher, I know that this is the kind of book that can hook someone who does not usually read. Due to some of the mature content, obviously, I cannot recommend this book to my reluctant readers.)

I really enjoyed ‘Snow’, the first book I have read by the author Mike Bond. His writing experience as an author and journalist are evident, as is his passion as an environment when describing the setting of the Montana and Colorado. He even manages to slot into the plot the fight against wind turbines (one of the greatest challenges he sees the environment facing).
But more importantly than all of this, is that Snow has a great storyline which gets the reader to consider whether it is justifiable for ‘good people’ to steal from criminals when their needs and purposes are greater and more honourable than the criminals. There are a lot of twists and turns in the book (that one would expect from an author of this calibre).
The plot moves along at a good pace following the four main characters on their moral journey in the action packed book.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I’d recommend this book to all readers who enjoy a well written book with a backbone, excellent plot and well developed characters.

This book remains me a lot the Narco-Novelas my husband watch and I really really dislike but is my bad for asking a book without properly reading the description...
Besides the plot I really didn't like the writing style and I dislike the characters so in general I didn't enjoy reading this book.

I'd give Snow 3.5 stars if I could. While there was a lot of action in this story and I don't doubt that this could have happened, the poor decision making of the main characters took away from my enjoyment of the story.

Zack and Steve seemed like they didn't bother to think through the consequences of anything. First things first, if I found a plane, wrecked in the middle of nowhere and filled with drugs, I'm pretty sure it would scream cartel to me and I do not want any cartel people after me. Okay, I'm not in a story, but seriously.

The way they just ruined the horses, stole a truck....and all the hints about the DEA office being compromised, (but nothing was ever explored on that angle) kept pulling me out of the story to wonder why. It seriously could have been a much better story with a little thinking on several people's parts.

All that said, I would read another of Mr. Bond's books, if only to see if this was a one-off as far as his work is concerned.

I appreciate Mr. Bond and his publishers as well as Netgalley for allowing me an early copy.

Wow! Fast paced and grabs your attention from the first page. Strong story. Would recommend.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I tried to like this book. It is not for me. The premise might would work, but the characters were just annoying. Two old friends get together for a hunting trip when they become across a plane crash and interesting coffins in board. I never did understand who I was supposed to trust in this whole story. I'm sure there will be some who love this kind of suspense, but just not for me.

I think I came in expecting more than I got from this one. I'm all for flawed protagonists but not boring ones. I'm honestly not sure that I wanted any of the characters to 'win' in this books. Maybe one because he seemed like the only decent human being around but not the two main characters. While the story does race full steam ahead throughout the whole book, my lack of care for the characters slowed me down. I also found the prose a bit awkward in places. A lot of things (i.e. cocaine, Las Vegas, so on) get compared to sex workers. Sure, I see the analogy but did it have to be used so often? On a positive note to end here, I found the outdoor descriptions to be wonderful. Bond really does a great job with settings. I like the genre and the author but this one just wasn't for me.

Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher Mandevilla Press, and the author Mike Bond for the opportunity to do so.

Mike Bond never fails to produce page-turning suspense. As always, the settings and characterization are intricate and detailed, the plot full of false trails yet inexorably building to a stunning climax.

Flawed protagonists are the norm for Bond. Horribly wrong decisions are made. Yet somehow there's rarely a question of who's good and who's bad; circumstances and events shape the people and their actions, and there's a sense that the final result was inevitable from the very start. Yet the process of getting there is fascinating and rarely predictable.

John D. Macdonald would have liked the writing of Mike Bond.